Turn Your iPhone into a Stereopticon Viewer

I'll confess. I own an Android phone and while most days I'm happy with it, there are moments when I really wish I owned an iPhone.  Here's just one more reason. Now you can make it a 3-D viewer.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, stereographs were a popular entertainment and used as an educational tool. They consisted of two nearly identical images placed side by side on a horizontal card.  They were viewed with a special viewer that made the image appear 3-D

Jacob Spoel, Company of Ladies Watching Stereoscopic Photographs, c.1850s-1860s, Rijksmuseum.

George Stacy, Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, no. 624, 1865 Library of Congress.

Fast forward a generation or two. When I was a child I'd spend hours traveling around the world without leaving the couch. All I needed was my Viewmaster. My parents even bought me a projector so that I could make the images life-size.

Now all you need to join in the new 3-D fan club is a Poppy.  You can read more about it on the Flickr blog and watch it in action here.  Retail price is $59.95.   A fun invention by members of the Maker Movement, a ground-level group of inventors.   If you want one, buy it soon. There are limited quantities.

Poppy 3-D